Labels

Just got back from the (almost daily) trip to the skate park with the kids.

Scooters are the hot thing right now, and we have a pretty great skate park here, so we spend a fair amount of time there.

There was a kid there today who reminded me about the power of labels.

He was telling the other kids how he is much older than his brother but not nearly as mature. After that, he rattled off a long list of other things he said were “wrong” with him.

Now kids don’t think this way about themselves naturally, but adults seem to be good at doing it.

You really don’t look good in green.

You really have trouble focusing your attention.

You seem to struggle with sitting still.

You’re just not as good at math as other people are.

The world is insane with labels. Labels are thought forms. They MANIFEST reality, they do not describe it.

How many times do you have to tell a child about his “attention problems” before he believes it? Before he becomes it? Before the perception of that as a PROBLEM becomes his reality?

Who’s the normal one? The child who can sit in a cage for eight hours a day being told what to think and do or the one who can’t handle it?

I was the kid who could sit in a cage for eight hours a day listening to people tell me what to think and do. I won awards for it. It is NOT normal. It is the mark of a spirit that has never felt safe enough to come out and BE in the open. It is the mark of a mind that has not yet developed the ability to think critically about all things.

The very least we can do is to use labels in a powerful and productive way:

When you use labels that describe the potential you see in someone, they can use their power of creation to manifest that best version of themselves.